IBM bets $3 billion on the death of silicon chips

IBM is worried that the age of silicon may be drawing to a
close. So it's going to spend $3 billion (£1.75 billion) over the
next half-decade to try and find new ways to power the future
generations of microprocessors.

Today's state-of-the-art IBM chips use silicon components that
are already tiny -- just 22 nanometers in width. But looking about
five years into the future, parts become so small that it becomes
extremely difficult to maintain a reliable on or off state. "As we
get into the 7 nanometer timeframe, things really begin to taper
off," Rosamilia says.

So the first step of IBM's $3 billion (£1.75 billion) quest will
fund research into ways of making these smaller chip components
work -- even if they don't use silicon. IBM has high hopes for a
silicon alternative, called carbon nanotubes, but the concept still
needs work if it's going to become as easy to crank out carbon
nanotube chips as their silicon alternatives. Another promising
area is silicon nanophotonics: a way of using light instead of
electrical signals to send data around the chip.

"The microprocessor industry has had an amazing ride,
but already you can see some fraying at the edges of Moore's
Law."

Beyond that, IBM is also investing in brand new ways of
number-crunching -- quantum computing, or Neurosynaptic chips --
that use computing models that go beyond the digital computing
paradigm that has dominated the tech industry for fifty years.

The microprocessor industry has had an amazing ride, but already
you can see some fraying at the edges of Moore's Law -- the
observation that chip performance doubles ever two years or so.

If you ask the world's largest chipmaker, Intel, the company
will tell you that Moore's Law is alive and well, and that it
expects to crank out faster and faster chips for the foreseeable
future.

So why the disconnect? Most likely, it comes down to the
different business models of Intel and IBM. Although both companies
make their own microprocessors, Intel rules the high-volume desktop
market. It sells server chips too, but at higher volumes than IBM.
Big Blue, on the other hand, is looking to carve out profitable
niches for its systems, taking advantages of its expertise in
software and system design to build unique systems. It's looking
for competitive differentiation -- not necessarily high-volume
sales.

And if quantum computers, carbon nanotubes, and computers
modelled on the human brain are what it takes to get there, then
IBM may be buying itself a $3 billion (£1.75 billion) head
start.